History - Kloster Einsiedeln

Kloster Fahr

History

St. Meinrad (greater picture)

In 835, Meinrad, a Benedictine monk from the Island of Reichenau in Lake Constance, withdrew as a hermit into the "Dark Forest". Other hermits followed, among them bishop Benno from Metz in Lorraine. In 934 Eberhard, a noble priest and canon of the cathedral of Strasbourg, assembled the hermits into a monastic community and in 934 a Benedictine monastery was founded. Later excellent teachers lived here, e.g. Blessed abbot Gregory of England (+ 996) and St. Wolfgang, the later bishop of Ratisbonne (+ 994). Supported by bishops, by the

nobility ( especially by the duchess Reginlinda ) and by the royal house, Einsiedeln became a spiritual and cultural center for the whole Alemannic region and influenced Bavaria and Upper Italy (monks of Einsiedeln founded and reformed abbeys; other monks were made bishops).
After 1100 the prince abbey for social and political reasons, met with a constant decline, so that at the time of the Reformation only one member of the abbey was left. Since the 14th century the Marian pilgrimage has begun to flourish again and after the trials of Reformation although only gradually, prosperity returned, both spiritual and material, and the abbey entered a golden age in the baroque time. After the suppression of 1798 and the three years exile a new start was made. Amidst uncertainty due to continual political troubles, soon a new flowering of the monastery and its abbey school of liberal arts began to unfold. The abbey of Einsiedeln with its Marian shrine became the focus of Swiss Catholic piety and culture and even an international pilgrimage site. In the 19th and 20th century the vitality of the abbey allowed the monks to make various monastic foundations in North and South America, some of which grew bigger than Einsiedeln.


The Church and the Construction of the Monastery
The Romanesque and the Gothic buildings had suffered in the course of the centuries and were insufficient for the growing community. In 1704 construction began on the symmetrical complex of the actual monastery with its four inner courtyards. In the middle of the monastery lies the abbey church, running from its western façade to the east, it is the central point of the large rectangle. The other wings, connected together by spacious and luminous corridors house the community rooms which are suitably decorated, and the individual cells which have a consciously simple finishing. The south wing houses the abbot's "court", the guest rooms, the kitchen, the refectory and the Great Hall; the adjoining wings to the west and the east are for the monastic community. The wing adjoining the choir from the east houses the juniors and on the first level has the beautifully stuccoed "old chapter hall." The baroque library and the abbey school occupy the north wing. By 1718, the new complex was complete, with the exception of the north-west portion of the façade which was added only in 1746. At different times various buildings were added for the administration, for the workshops, for the school and for the barns and for the horse stables. On the baroque square with the "Lady Fountain" (1747) one stands before the limestone façade with the two effectively proportioned towers. The architect of the abbey church was Brother Caspar Moosbrugger to whom we owe also the plan for the symmetrical complex of the whole monastery. The church was solemnly consecrated on May 3, 1735. In the present abbey church the thousand years of its history are reflected.

On entering the church, one stands in the great octagon enclosing the "Lady Chapel" which is built of black marble. This pilgrimage shrine stands on the site of the ancient "hermit's chapel" which was originally dedicated to our Savior. The legend, depicted in the frescoes of the vaults, says that Christ himself dedicated the chapel to his holy mother, the virgin Mary. Her miraculous statue with the black face (carved before 1466) stands above the altar in the chapel.

Lady Chapel (greater picture)